Black Tape for a Blue Girl - the scavenger bride
2002/ 51:18 Minutes / 13 Tracks / Studio
Release Date: April 23, 2002 - Projekt
Produced by: Sam Rosenthal
Website: www.blacktapeforabluegirl.com
Website: www.thescavengerbride.com

Reviewed by Matt Rowe on March 25, 2002

Years past, Lou Reed made a conceptual album named "Berlin" and called it a "movie of the mind". Black Tape's eighth, and latest masterpiece, "the scavenger bride" is reminescent of that idea except they create "movies of the soul". Replete with the lushness of love and the darkness of rejection, "the scavenger bride" unfolds a remarkable set of songs. Each song, a testament to the genius of black tape's founder, Sam Rosenthal, wends its way through the broken down and lost pathways leading to the human spirit. What it finds there, in that spirit, is neither peace nor transcendence but rather a miasma of excrutiatingly intense and icicled discoveries.

The language of the lyrics haunt with a fierceness that doesn't leave for hours, indeed days. There is funereal sadness in the delivery of those lyrics.Whether sung by Elysabeth Grant with her wonderfully poignant voice or sung by several male contributers providing the touches of aural darkness so vividly etched into the soundscape of this work. Every musical sound emanating from this disc is so necessary to the dissemination of the stories, from the artistic merging of strings provided by Grant's viola, from Julia Kent's cello and from Vicki Richards' evocative violin to the misty and eternal flute of Lisa Feuer. Sam Rosenthal's command of the project and his outstanding atmospheric electronic work seals the glory. With each hanging note, a mood becomes set that whisks the listener into a world not their own, into a world of love filled with pain and deceit, a world of desire that is never fully realized but deeply yearned for.

This world could never be visualized if not for the expertise of black tape. The ability to make you slip into the fog of lonely pain and believe in it must be delicately produced by people who have deep understanding. This is the hallmark of black tape. In every one of their releases, they have given us the capability to watch the heart of love slowly freeze into an unmoving organ, barely beating...just barely beating, seeing its cracked and heavily frosted components glow with life but choked with cold death.

With each successive release by black tape, I become more and more elated by the perfection that becomes these pieces. They are vital collections in my library, like classics of old that never wear thin with time but progressingly become a life form of their own, standing out amidst all the works ever created. Black Tape is a band that demands to be heard for they have something to say that is timeless and is felt in every one whether we hear its voice or not.

I recommend not only this disc, although this disc is an absolute diamond, but the entire body of work by black tape. Many of the releases are accompanied by beautiful slip covers showcasing eerie imagery although lately, the stunningly beautiful Lisa Feuer adorns the covers. Lyrics are provided in a gracious booklet of sturdy paper unlike the usual glossy garbage we get with all other CDs that are not Projekt releases. The booklet details not only the lyrics but also performer information and more of that eerie imagery.

If you liked this CD, I highly recommend that you check out the releases of Geoff Smith who has two CDs out on Sony Classical. The first, "fifteen wild decembers" and the second, "black flowers". These masterpieces are not to be missed and highlight the haunting vocals of Nicola Walker Smith.

Thanks to black tape for a blue girl for allowing us to hear such exquisiteness and to share in the depths of their dreams and providing us opportunity to make the dreams our own.

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